Paradise High football team blasts Las Plumas

OROVILLE — Friday's matchup at Harrison Stadium featured one veteran team on the brink of yet another run in the postseason, and an up-and-coming squad hoping to squeak into the Northern Section CIF Division I playoffs this year.

While the Paradise High football team thoroughly controlled Las Plumas en route to a 49-7 nonleague road victory to head into the playoffs as the likely No. 2 seed and favorite to get to its 10th championship game in 11 years, LP was perhaps the surprise of the section.

The Thunderbirds (3-7, 3-3 Butte View League) not only won their second consecutive Victory Bell game over rival Oroville this season, but are just two years removed from an 0-10 season under then-coach A.J. Cahee.

David Morris grabbed the reigns of the program beginning last year and helped the T'birds to their best record since a 5-5 finish in 2001.

LP didn't make the section playoffs that year and hasn't been to the postseason since 1996. This year is the best chance for LP to get back to the postseason, according to the calculations of Redding Record Searchlight reporter T.J. Holmes. Holmes reported via Twitter Friday night that LP could sneak into the No. 5 seed, while Foothill earns the sixth seed and Pleasant Valley is left out of the playoffs when the brackets are officially released at the seeding meeting today.

"I thought they played tough and if they get that six seed they deserve it," Paradise coach Rick Prinz said.

LP even played Paradise (7-3, 5-1 Eastern Athletic League) tough for a portion of Friday's contest. Less than two minutes after Paradise senior running back Matt Machado scored the first of his three first-half touchdowns, LP answered with a 50-yard TD run from J.J. Diaz. The 5-foot-11, 175-pound junior took it right through the heart of a Paradise defensive line that features 6-3, 220-pounder Jonathan Dixon and a small yet extremely quick and athletic Wyatt Wyckoff as bookends, to tie the game at 7 with 5 minutes, 49 seconds left in the opening quarter.

Despite the early deadlock, Prinz said his demeanor remained the same.

"I was pretty confident tonight, but it goes to show that those kids are trying at LP and they're working their tails off," Prinz said. "It was a good play on their part."

Paradise had many big plays, headlined by its three-headed senior attack in the backfield and veteran offensive line. On the second play from scrimmage after LP's touchdown, Machado scored from 69 yards out when he bolted through the left side of the line and received a crucial downfield block at around the LP 30-yard line from junior running back D.J. Norton to put the Bobcats in front 13-7 late in the first quarter.

Machado accounted for 176 of the Bobcats' 337 yards on the ground in the first half. Dixon was also nearly unstoppable when on the first play of the second quarter he rumbled home for the first of his two scores from 25 yards out and later tacked on a 2-point conversion on a run through the left side to push the lead to 21-7 with 11:53 left.

To make matters worse for LP, senior quarterback Kenny Bengson added 55 yards on five carries on the read option-sweep around the edge to keep Paradise's offense on the field and the game in its favor.

"We knew we were going to have to stop three plays, basically," Morris said. "We were going to have to stop the quarterback keeping it on the edge, the counter and the fullback dive through the hole. Tonight we did everything we could to put guys up there and they were just running through our tackles."

Paradise scored 28 unanswered points after the early 7-7 tie to grab a 35-7 lead at halftime.

The second half featured TD runs from Paradise senior Nick Klein and senior Dominic Vannucci to blow it even more wide open at 49-7 early in the third quarter.

That's when the reserves began to make their way from the Paradise sideline onto the field. LP rotated Diaz and 6-2 senior Jess Little at quarterback, while keeping senior Ronnie Osby in at running back and the younger A.J. Cahee in at wide receiver. Cahee, who came in with a team-high 14 catches for 233 yards and two touchdowns in seven games, hauled in three catches for 19 yards in the second half from Little and Diaz.

Now it's out of their hands, as Cahee, Osby and the town of Oroville wait and see if they did enough to get into the playoffs for the first time in 17 years.